


Keep the ends out for the ties that bind

by heavenisalibrary



Series: Tumblr Prompt Fills [32]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-24 01:29:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4900354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His wife is a menace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep the ends out for the ties that bind

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the tumblr prompt "jealous kiss".

His Eleventh self was so easy to make squirm. Short dress, the usual smirk, red lipstick, hand on his thigh, her lips on his ear, head-thrown-back laughter she reserves only for him — there were, when he wore the bow tie, nearly endless things River could employ to make him go all red and frazzled and flailing. His Eleventh self had been all emotion, and no outlet; he’d been at all times humming and buzzing and bottled up, and so when River provided the right stimulus, it was easy for her to make him explode. What River did on her own time was her own — he  _wanted_  her to have her own life — and he didn’t equate monogamy to fidelity, but one of the quickest ways to set him off in his previous body was just to flirt with the nearest life form and voila. He suddenly lost control of his limbs, his mouth, basically every impulse.

This body, though. This body is harsh and firm and Scottish, not prone to flailing or outbursts of anything but anger or frustration. Sometimes when he’s with River, in this body, he misses his Eleventh self; everything is different, now. But he doesn’t miss the way his Eleventh self reacted to her. She can’t make him blush, she can’t fluster him. It’s almost fun to watch her growing irritation with that fact. 

He thought he was safe from all of her most infuriating tactics of rendering him red and embarrassed and incoherent. He was very, very wrong.

She’s younger than usual — not  _young_ , young — he doesn’t even want to contemplate how gleeful River would be  _truly_  young and faced with an apparently unflappable version of him — but just before she becomes a Professor. Mostly, in this body, he runs into a very settled Professor Song. She tries a little harder to rile him, running her hands all over him as they walk through the planet of the chip shops, even grabbing his ass a few times when he’s in the middle of a sentence with a third party. It barely makes him twitch, although he entangles his fingers with hers to keep her  _still_ , after a while.

They stop for drinks at a bar with french fry themed drinks — he’s excited, she’s repulsed — and she sidles into his side of the booth when he sits down, pressing up against his side and pressing a kiss to his jaw when he asks if she’d like his own seat or if she’d prefer to stay in his lap.

“I’m perfectly comfortable,” she says, “although if you’d prefer me to scoot over…” She starts to climb onto his lap, watching him closely as he rolls his eyes and squeezes her knee with his hand, pushing her back onto the booth.

“Are you trying to seduce me, Doctor Song?”

“No need,” River says, “I’m trying to make you blush. I do so miss babyface for that.”

He snorts, accepting his drink and River’s from one of the automated waiters. He sets hers down in front of her.

“It’s not going to work, dear. I’ve seen your future — I  _know_.” 

That’s one thing that’s stuck, between the regenerations —  _dear_  has always been a sort of strange, intimate endearment, to him. The closest Gallifreyan equivalent  _means_  more, it’s heavier, deeper, darker. It implies more of a bond, and more of an infinity, than most endearments. He knows it’s an error in translation, but he can’t shake it, and it’s long been reserved just for his TARDIS — but since nearly the second time he’d met River, he’d also found it tumbling out of his mouth toward her.

“Time can be rewritten,” she says, pursing her lips at him.

“And look where that got us last time.”

“Married, as it happens,” River says on a laugh, stirring the straw in her drink and looking at it distastefully. She’s starting to scan the room, and it makes him wary, but he chooses not to comment for the time being. “Not that it means much to you. You get married all the time.”

“Come on,” he says, “pot, kettle.”

“I’ve only been married a few hundred times,” River says, “that I was sober enough to remember. Many of them have even been to you.”

“ _Only?”_

_“_ Don’t pout, sweetie,” she says. “I’m not even going to ask after your tally.”

“Couldn’t give one if you did,” he says. “For what it’s worth, ours are the only ones I — well, you know.” He tugs at the lapels of his jacket, feeling particularly stodgy in that moment.

River reaches over to cover his hand with hers, giving it a squeeze before tracing her index finger over the wedding band he wears now. “I know.”

Suddenly she’s sliding out of the booth, drink in hand, although she doesn’t seem to have any intention of drinking it, and he jumps out behind her.

“Where are you  _going_?”

“Being social, sweetie,” she says, “I’m an archaeologist, I like to get to know the locals. The culture, and all that.”

“I’m not quite sure that’s what being an archaeologist means.”

“Know much about archaeology, then?”

He scowls at her as she smirks over her shoulder at him, tossing him a wink as she infiltrates a group of strangers, immediately enmeshing herself in their conversation like she belongs. All it takes is a beaming introduction and a witty barb and suddenly everyone’s eating out of River’s hand. He’s seen it before; in fact, he’s been on the receiving end of River’s befuddling wiles almost constantly, so he  _gets_  it. Doesn’t make it any less annoying.

After about ten minutes, it becomes clear that one of the women in the group — a beautiful blonde who even  _he_  has to admit is clever and just a little bit stunning to look at — has taken an interest in River. More irritatingly, River has taken an interest in  _her_ , touching her arm when she talks, smiling at her as she sips from her drink — although  _he_  can tell that River’s only barely resisting the urge to cringe at the taste — licking her lips as she listens, twirling a finger in her curls. His wife is an expert in many things, but flirting is near the top. And she’s free to practice it on whomever she pleases, just  _not_  in front of him.

He finds himself stepping nearer and nearer to her as everyone chats, unable to really participate in the conversation because he’s so focused on River. He ends up standing half behind her, her shoulder pressed to his chest as he crowds around her. He’s not  _jealous_. He just doesn’t see why his  _wife_  needs to flirt with another woman when he’s standing  _right there_. 

When she tosses her hair over her shoulder, and he sees the blonde’s eyes trace a little too intently down River’s neck and  _lower_ , he reaches a hand around River’s back to rest on the small of it, flattening his palm to take up as much space as he can.

The blonde, however, doesn’t seem to take notice, instead leaning into River to whisper something in her ear that makes River grin, and that’s about all it takes for him to lose his cool in a way he didn’t even think was possible anymore.

He steps in closer to River, jarring her slightly, and when she turns to look at him, he presses his palms against either side of her face and kiss her. She’s clearly surprised, and he feels  _her_  flail a bit, jostling her drink and spilling some of it on his sleeve. He just kisses her harder, forcing her lips apart and burying his hands in her hair. He tugs at her curls a little roughly, and she lets out a low groan into his mouth; he runs his tongue along hers, over the roof of her mouth, then pulls back to nip at her lower lip. He starts to pull back, but she leans back into him, kissing him again, softly, but he makes it hungry. He slides one hand out of her hair and down around her back until he can grab her ass, and she _definitely_  makes a noise of surprise as he gives it a firm squeeze, pulling her to him and letting the kiss take on a sharper edge, his teeth clashing against hers as she goes slack against him.

He knows she’s wont to slap him when he’s smug, but he definitely feels her knees give out, just a little bit.

When he pulls away, she looks more than a little dazed, her drink all but emptied onto the floor as she blinks at him, stumbling slightly as he releases his arm around her to let her stand on her own. He’s more than a little pleased to find her looking rather flushed.

“Jealous idiot,” she murmurs, her voice breathy.

He just smirks at her, and turns toward the blonde. “Hello,” he says. “I’m the  _husband.”_

_“_ Yes, he is,” River says, recovering quickly, although he’s filled to the brim with the exact sort of smugness she’d slap him for at the way she rests a hand over her heart, like she’s trying to catch her breath. “Care to…” she trails off, dropping her voice to that wonderful, filthy register that makes him shiver. “Care to keep us company? If you know what I mean.”

He feels himself blush, just when he’d thought he’d finally come out on top. He starts to turn away before River sees, but she’s already looking at him, even more smug than he was. He huffs.

“No need to be jealous, honey,” she says, “I’m happy to share.”

His wife is a menace.


End file.
